While the CCH Axcess suite is cloud-based, its web-based operation is not the most important feature of the company's newest product line, according to Teresa Mackintosh, CEO of Wolters Kluwer CCH. The key is the suite's shared database. "It happens to be in the cloud. But the Holy Grail is to have one true common database," she said this week.

Mackintosh made the comments in an interview at the company's Connections user conference in a follow up to her keynote at the event in Orlando, Fla.

Wherever the benefit lies, the company's Axcess line, its cloud-based tax and accounting suite has shown sharp growth, although apparently still on a small base. There were about 500,000 returns prepared on Axcess Tax during the 2014 tax season and Mackintosh said Axcess products represent 40 percent of all new product sales.

"A vast majority of our customers are on our foundation products," she says. But notes, Axcess is "an increasing percentage of our new sales. We are starting to see that shift."

There are still some barriers. Some attendees from accounting firm technology departments say there are performance issues—the system can slow down and there have been outages.

Mackintosh says that of the modules in the Axcess line "Document and Tax are leading the way" although conversations with conferences attendees suggest movement to the cloud-based version of Document is the stronger of the two.

The introduction of Axcess was also accompanied by the company's decision to allow other software publishers access to the cloud code so they can write complementary products. Macintosh says little been announced in that area as CCH has focused on Axcess enhancements. However, that is going to change.

"We have been focusing on enhancements," she says. "I would expect you will see a big pickup in traction in the coming year."